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Emirati flag fluttering above Dubai’s marina with the Burj Al Arab landmark hotel in the background [KARIM SAHIB/AFP via Getty Images]

The United Arab Emirates paid more than $6 million to a secretive US reputation management firm tied to whitewashing a client’s link to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, to manipulate Google search results and suppress damaging reporting about its ambassador to Washington, Yousef Al-Otaiba, according to a New York Times investigation.

The revelation appears in a wider investigation into Terakeet, a Syracuse-based firm that specialises in search engine optimisation and online reputation management for powerful clients facing public scrutiny.

While the New York Times investigation focuses mainly on Terakeet’s failed attempt to repair the reputation of Goldman Sachs general counsel and supporter of Israel, Kathryn Ruemmler, over her links to Epstein, one of its most striking revelations concerns the firm’s work for the UAE and its long-serving ambassador in Washington, Yousef Al-Otaiba.

An advocate of Israel, Ruemmler’s Washington legal career saw her make the case for legislation to combat the anti-BDS (Boycott Divestment and Sanctions) campaign. In 2019, she and former US solicitor general Paul Clement were cited as having written legal opinions arguing that legislation linked to President Donald Trump executive order on anti-Semitism did not violate the First Amendment, even though critics warned that such measures could be used to suppress campus criticism of Israel and support for BDS.

READ: The Emirati lobby: The biggest spender and the largest Arab one

Terakeet’s work for the UAE is said to have begun in July 2019 and continues to this day. Much of its formal work focused on promoting tourism in the Emirates. However, former employees told the paper that Al-Otaiba was concerned about a 2017 article published by The Intercept, written by Ryan Grim, now co-founder of Drop Site News, which reported that the ambassador had once had ties to sex workers and traffickers.

Rather than challenge the report directly, Terakeet allegedly worked to bury it.

The Times reported that a small team at Terakeet was tasked with pushing Grim’s article off the first page of Google search results. The account manager, Kenneth Schiefer, reportedly relocated from Syracuse to Washington for more than a year to work in person with Al-Otaiba at the UAE embassy, avoiding a digital trail of emails and text messages between them.

Terakeet then established a personal webpage for Al-Otaiba and generated flattering online profiles emphasising his leadership and diplomatic credentials. The firm supplied these profiles to institutions linked to the ambassador, including the Milken Institute, the Special Olympics and Harvard’s Kennedy School, as well as to The Marque, a paid digital profile directory.

READ: Reports: UAE ambassador embroiled in global corruption scandal

The Times also reported that Terakeet used an anonymous editor handle, VentureKit, to create what it described as a fraudulent “sock puppet” account, Quorum816, to add positive information about Al-Otaiba to his Wikipedia page in 2020. Wikipedia later reversed the edits and suspended both accounts.

The purpose of the operation was clear: to create enough favourable and “differentiated” content about the UAE ambassador to force damaging reporting lower down in Google search results. According to the Times, the effort succeeded. By 2023, The Intercept article had dropped to page two of Google results. Today, for most users, it appears on page five.

The UAE is said to have paid Terakeet more than $6 million between 2020 and 2022 for the work.

The wider New York Times investigation centres on Terakeet’s work for Goldman Sachs and Ruemmler, a former White House counsel under President Barack Obama. Terakeet reportedly sought to address what an internal memo described as her “association risk problem” over her ties to Epstein.

Senior Terakeet figures reportedly discussed how to promote favourable material about Ruemmler so that at least 80 per cent of the first 30 Google results would be positive. The firm created or planned personal websites, LinkedIn pages and multiple biographical profiles intended to appear above stories about her meetings and correspondence with Epstein.

But the effort ultimately failed. New documents released by the US House Oversight Committee and later by the Justice Department reportedly revealed extensive references to Ruemmler in Epstein-related records, including emails in which she used affectionate terms for him and discussed travel, gifts and legal advice. Ruemmler announced in February that she would resign from Goldman Sachs.

READ: Leaks: UAE spent $2.7m to improve Sisi’s image in US

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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UAE paid $6m to reputation firm tied to Epstein whitewashing to bury damaging report on ambassador